their markets and stables, he sometimes, if near the coast, spreads upon his land heaps of fishes thrown up by the tide. Sea-weed, and even the mud of the shore, impregnated with salt water, prove valuable to him as manures. Salt itself, though formerly made, as I have observed, the very emblem of barrenness, is found, in a due proportion, to operate powerfully in forcing the growth of vegetables; and not only sea-salt but every thing of a saline nature, has this property. Thus, the ashes of burnt vegetables, which yield the alkaline salt called soda, are employed as a manure; and it is a common practice to pare off the turf of barren soils, and, piling it in small heaps, to set them on fire, after which the ashes are spread over the land. In countries where many sheep are kept, arable land is much improved by folding these animals by night successively over it, when it becomes enriched by the oily droppings from their fleeces, and what else they leave behind.

It is to manure that gardeners are particularly indebted for the abundance and luxuriance of their products. The rich garden

mould, indeed, is almost entirely composed of rotted vegetables, the relics of long cultivation. By the constant application of composts, the gardens in the neighbourhood of London are enabled to yield that prodigious supply of vegetables which such a city requires for no sooner is one crop gathered, than the ground is prepared for the reception of another; and thus every season of the year, scarcely excepting the dead time of winter, has its peculiar harvests. Similar management gives to the grass-fields round London that verdure, so grateful to the eye, which neither the burning suns of July, nor the pinching frosts of January, can destroy. It is thus by the art, and we may now add, the science, of the cultivators of the field and the garden, which has nowhere been carried to a higher pitch than in this island, that we support in plenty our vast population where half the numbers of ignorant and lazy barbarians would die of hunger.

It has been said, that he is truest patriot. who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before; if so, we may reckon our patriots by thousands. With this encouraging remark, I now take my leave.

LETTER VI.

AGRICULTURE CONTINUED.

MY DEAR BOY, Before I say more on the operations of husbandry, it may be proper to remark, that in the hot countries water is considered as the most valuable of all manures, and a great share of the skill of the husbandman is employed in procuring a due supply of it. Plants, it is found, will grow luxuriantly in water alone, if aided by a suitable degree of warmth; and in almost every climate, rank vegetation accompanies the course of brooks and rivers, and the moisture of marshes. You have probably read of the fertility bestowed upon Egypt by the annual inundation of its great river, the Nile, which stands to it instead of all other dressings for the land, and even of the rain from heaven. That country, in reality, is only a long narrow slip of culti

vated land on the banks of the Nile, bounded on each side by rocks and sandy deserts. The Ganges, and various other rivers which take their rise from high mountains, are subject to similar periodical floods at the melting of the snow, of which the inhabitants make their advantage, by drawing off the water through trenches and canals to the distant grounds. Many are the contrivances in Persia, China, and other thirsty countries of the East, for throwing up water from the channels of rivers and ponds, to the higher lands. Without these, the heat of the sun would soon wither every green thing, and the country would be rendered a barren waste. this state those fine valleys have in fact been reduced, which in ancient times nourished the great and magnificent cities of Nineveh. and Babylon. Through the effects of foreign conquest and ignorant and oppressive government, the country has become quite impoverished: in consequence, aqueducts have gone to ruin, canals have been suffered to run dry, wells have become choked up, the people have dwindled away for want of the means of subsistence, and a country

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which was once cultivated like a garden, is now little better than a wilderness. In our part of the world, the frequency of rains throughout the year causes these cares to be for the most part unnecessary; yet the practice of occasionally flooding grass fields has been adopted with great success in several places, and as rich a vegetation has been obtained as could have been produced by any compost.

A preparatory operation to the culture of land, which is now seldom necessary in this country, is the clearing it of wood. This is the first business in forming settlements in the western wilds of North America; and so stubborn a piece of work it is, that to a resident in that part of the world, the idea of a cleared country is almost the same with that of a cultivated one. It is generally reckoned too great a labour at first to dig up the large trees by the roots; but after the underwood is cleared away, they are stript of their branches, and then girdled, as they call it, which consists in cutting a circle of bark round the trunk, whereby it is made gradually to decay. This, however, is but a